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Welcome to Coolasscinema.com! This is a site dedicated to the propagation of strange and exciting cinema (and television) from all over the world as well as America's own grand tradition of exploitation cinema classics. From the front (and back) seats of drive in's across the nation, to the sleaze pit theaters of New York's famed 42nd street, to the comforts of home watching fantastic cinema on the Late Show, remember those classic (and sometimes classless) films of old and even discover some new ones.

Friday, January 11, 2013

"I still love DEATH PROOF. It is still the lesser of my movies though, and I don't ever want to
make anything lesser than that."-- December 19th, 2012 interview with
the NY Times. I'm curious if QT underwent therapy for his DEATH PROOF disaster as per his refusal to admit he made a high-octane piece of shit.

DEATH SPOOF has everything but the exploitation it promises. It's supposedly a tribute to car chase flicks of the 70s, yet there's only one car chase. It's supposed to be a slasher movie (don't laugh), yet there's no body count style death scenes.You're left with sight gags, lots of conversations referencing various pictures and famous movie characters, QT referencing himself, and even Kurt Russell doing a pretty good impression of John Wayne.

It's quite possibly the lousiest exploitation movie ever made just because it's bereft of everything it promises. I recall QT stating that the REAL trash pictures often never delivered what their trailers and posters promised. How ironic that his doesn't, either. To be totally honest, there are some things I liked about it, though. Below is that list...

What I Liked...

1. The opening credits, especially the cute panther that turns into the 'restricted' logo. I love that!

2. Two dialog exchanges during the painfully overlong bar sequence that beautifully reflect the mainstream audiences obliviousness to pop culture's past and indoctrination of CGI technology.

3. The way the first car crash was shot and edited was quality.

4. The car chase at the end was likewise nicely accomplished, although I wouldn't say it was one of the greatest car chases ever.

5. The score for this movie actually fits as opposed to QT's previous examples of mix n' match musical choices.

What IDidn't Like...

1. The mercilessly incessant, unending jabbering.

2. The self-indulgent, over the top ramblin' of QT's 'Look what I can do' attitude towards his writing ability.

3. Most exploitation movies begin with a scene that sets up the rest of the movie. This one just has shots of feet and lots of talking.

4. Most exploitation movies exaggerate or exploit sex and violence to grab an audience. This $67 million yawner exploits nothing but yappin'...and feet.

5. For a movie that spends 3/4 of its running time babblin', none of the characters are memorable except for Stuntman Mike, and he's almost forgotten about once the second set of girls are introduced in an hour into this picture.

6. In QT's movie world, there are no cops around when people are speeding or trying to run folks off the road.

7. Somehow or other, Stuntman Mike manages to evade arrest following what has be the most incompetent police investigation ever. The two cops in the ten gallon hats can't get a murder charge on a guy responsible for four deaths while going "200mph"? Not to mention the other dead girl in his car inside a separate compartment from the drivers seat.

"I like everything to take place in my own Quentin universe."-- and what a boring place the 'Neighborhood of Make-Believe' turned out to be.

More
so than ever before, the characters of DP all talk like Tarantino. It's
like Quentin wanted to play everybody, but since he couldn't, he'd turn them all into male and female Quentin's and psycho whack-job Quentin's.
Kurt Russell is the most interesting of these, but he's not given much
to do except talk about movies and TV shows his character has worked on.
Also, the level of chatter is so high in this thing, you forget that his character is even in the movie during the second hour; at least I did.

"Tarantino said that Rob Zombie shot enough footage of his trailer, 'Werewolf Women of the SS' to have enough to make a full length feature. We may in fact see another Grindhouse on the way very soon.....GRINDHOUSE 2 coming soon, alright!" -- Two hosts on Reelzchannel.com scaring the shit out of everybody at the mere thought of another Rob Zombie movie, much less a sequel to the turd that is the subject of this article.

After the release of G****HOUSE, there was an abnormal amount of movies that attempted to recreate the 70s style. These films weren't just indigenous to America, either. They were aborted in other countries, too, at a rate akin to the mutant babies that were poppin' out with rapidity in Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE (1974). And of course those who loved G****HOUSE loved these pseudo spin offs. Rob Zombie was among these, although we've yet to see his TYRANNOSAURUS REX, but if his other horror-ible movies are anything to go by, hopefully we won't see it.

These include such future classics as HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, MACHETE, CHILLERAMA and Japanese fluff like MACHINE GIRL. These and others like them range from moderately entertaining to gobsmackingly atrocious. The future of horror... a scary thought.

"OKAY RAMBLERS, LET'S GET RAMBLIN'" -- A COLLECTION OF ANECDOTES FROM SOME OF QT's BIGGEST ADMIRERS

"I really loved the Italian
films of the 60s and 70s. But what happened? It's a real tragedy. The
Italian films I’ve seen over the past few years all seem the same.
All they talk about is boys growing up, girls growing up, couples in
crisis and holidays for the mentally disabled."--QT discussing the alleged inferiority of the Italian cinema of today in 2007.Around the time G****HOUSE came out and bombed, Q-baby
made some strong remarks towards modern Italian cinema at the Cannes
Film Festival that year -- an outlet through which he was heavily hyping
his massive solo stink bomb.

Tarantino
has long been a champion for European movies particularly of the more
vigorous, less artistic variety. This is fairly well known now and it's
obviously appreciated by those filmmakers as the name 'Tarantino'
is tossed about with reckless, yet appreciative abandon in interviews
with most all of Italy's cult genre directors. It's nigh impossible not to
hear his name in the words of guys like Castellari (whom QT called a hack, by the way), Lenzi, Martino, Deodato and Margheriti to name a few.

I think it's obvious they are/were genuinely appreciative that an American filmmaker remembers them and their work, especially considering he's pretty much the sole director naming them in interviews and referencing them in movies. Nothing at all wrong with that. Some other European actors and filmmakers outside of QT's spectrum have also had some interesting, and enlightening things to say about Quentin's pontifications..."Quentin is a good director, a passionate cinema enthusiast and great
expert on all the world's trash. But you shouldn't take his comments too
seriously because he suffers from a form of verbal incontinence and he
is nostalgic for the Italian cinema of Lenzi, Bava and Fulci. I don't think he was comparing the best auteur cinema of yesterday and today. I doubt he had the cinema of Luchino Visconti, Pietro Germi and Pier Paolo Pasoliniin mind. And I don't think he knows Italy's auteur filmmakers of today." -- Pedro Almodovar"How dare he talk about Italian cinema when he doesn't know anything about American cinema?" -- Sophia Loren"Tarantino is a good director, but in no position to give us lessons. In saying these
things he has shown himself up as a jerk who doesn’t understand
anything." -- Marco Bellochio"If Nanni Moretti had made that declaration, we could discuss it. But it
came from Tarantino, who was a fan of Italian B movies. Evidently, now
that we make A movies, we don’t please him anymore. Who knows, maybe he
was drunk when he made that statement." -- Fernan Ozpetek

"DEATH
PROOF has got to be the worst movie I ever make. And for a left-handed
movie, that's not so bad, alright? So if that's the worst I ever get,
I'm good." -- QT in November
of 2012 dissing his movie, then defending it again in the same
sentence. The following month, he'd settle for it being the "lesser" of
his filmography.

Now allow me to re-release this little nugget he spit out in 2004... "If you ask me, the answer is none. I'm sure somebody else might find
weaknesses, but I can't. If there's a weakness, I don't do it -- you'd
never see the scene." Only this was more than just a scene. This was over two hours worth of weaknesses.

And here's some bonus moments of enlightenment from some additional filmmakers (one of special significance) regarding T-Bone's muthafuckin' brilliance...

"It's like watching a schoolboy's fantasy of violence and sex, which normally Quentin would be wanking alone to in his bedroom while his mother is making his baked beans downstairs. Only this time he's got Harvey Weinstein behind him and it's on at a million screens." -- documentary filmmaker, Nick Broomfield

"Tarantino named his production company after one of my films. He'd of done better to give me some money." -- Jean-Luc Godard

THEY SAVED TARANTINO'S BRAIN

MISSING REEL....

"I do like how he rambles on about how 2019: AFTER THE
FALL OF NEW YORK (1983) is his favorite Italian post apoc flick, but
can't remember Michael Sopkiw's name, and refers to him as an "Italian
William Smith"; which is funny considering Sopkiw isn't Italian and
William Smith has been in literally hundreds of movies and TV shows
while Sopkiw's film appearances can be counted on one hand." -- Venoms5 babbling about QT lousily babbling about numerous cult film actors and directors most likely because he knows relatively few will notice, or even know better.The Chosen One has
referred to himself as 'Great' for a great many years; at least as far
back as his very first flick, 1992's RESERVOIR DOGS ON FIRE. Not only that, but critics and audiences that are in love with his movies think he's pretty great, too. Hell, I thought he was great once upon a time. One thing I think we all can agree on is that Tarantino loves movies. He loves them so much he sometimes gets his influences mixed up, whimsically changes his mind about cinema personalities he likes, or just gives an obscure actor some random name because the embarrassment of him having to utter, "I don't know who that is" could cause irreparable damage. I am curious if Tarantino uses Ric Meyers as a film reference coach?

"Quentin Tarantino, one of the most imitated directors of this generation..."--The opening sentence from a May, 2012 website article titled, 'Amazing Fan Theory of Quentin Tarantino'. I just face palmed my keyboard.

I think one of my big problems with Tarantino is a certain contingent of his mainstream fans. They spout off about how Kool he is and how he's inspired by these vintage, obscure movies, but if you try to get one of these individuals to actually watch one of them, it's like offering garlic to Dracula.

Then the typical response is that Q Baby does them better. While that's a matter of opinion, it should be noted that -- now pay attention those of you on certain websites and Facebook pages that said I, and others like me are
missing the point -- without those old movies, without those
inspirations, there would be no Quentin Tarantino. There would be no
overly excited guy with a huge chin that waves his hands around a lot and often jumbles his words together. Put simply, QT would not exist; at least in the filmmaker sense of the word.

"15 million dollars on a movie starring Pam Grier and Robert Forster, that's pretty good. If I'm enough of a name that people will go see my movie, then I don't have to cast an actor who can open the film."-- Tarantino from a Dec. 2012 NYT interview talking about the lukewarm reception to JACKIE BROWN. Despite saying both actors were fantastic (they were), QT sort of condescends to them by proclaiming himself as the star of the show.

Most directors derive their strength from themes, novels and ideologies. Tarantino derives his strength from other peoples movies. Yes, he writes Kool dialog about nothing, but then so did the writers of SEINFELD. And by my own admission regarding filmmakers and novels, I guess that would explain why I feel JACKIE BROWN (1997) is his best film since it's based on Elmore Leonard's novel 'Rum Punch' as opposed to a Long Island Iced Tea of shit thrown together from any number of cinematic sources.

"You can't really do a spaghetti western anymore. Spaghetti westerns were a thing of their time."-- Substitute '70s style exploitation' for spaghetti western and we wouldn't be discussing this blight spot on QTs career right now.

Some folks that worship at the alter of QT havealso said that had it not been for G****HOUSE, than all those trashy 70s style movies wouldn't have gotten released on DVD. Well, it certainly wasn't because of its box office success, because there was none.
A lot of those movies were already out, or coming out in anticipation
that G****HOUSE would be a hit. In the early 2000s, QT had his own DVD label which failed to find a renewed audience for those movies. As he stated about spaghetti westerns, those films are a product of their time period, and no amount of 'dressing up something new as something old' is going to jumpstart the magic of that era all over again in a big way.

The word G****house itself had, or has become so annoying that I can't stand to even hear it anymore. Leading up to this movie coming out, everywhere you looked, whether online or in public, people were jovially throwing the word around like an
adjective. Clueless of any of the actual films associated with the
word, people were still saying what did or did not constitute a
G****house movie. This of course, was only because of Tarantino's affiliation with the film itself. Once it came and bombed, the discussion of these kinds of movies more or less ceased.

Tarantino's name(both before and especially after G****HOUSE's release) was often used to sell any sort of obscure, yet potentially hip flick known but to the dedicated cult film circles. Tarantino had already tried this with his Rolling Thunder DVD label which failed to catch on; and those discs had his face on the covers!

After the unexpected success of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON(a 2000 film that made over 128 million at the US box office and was also released subtitled as opposed to dubbed),another Chinese Wuxia film, HERO (2002), was similarly released, but with QT's name splattered across the top. That film ended up with a $53.7 million gross domestically. Good thing his name was on there. No telling how much money it would have made were it not on there for everybody to see. Whew!

"Quentin Tarantino...he's the John Ford of this era."-- Stuntman
legend Terry Leonard giving QT an incredible comment. How ironic that
QT recently came out stating his hatred for the revered director. It's
even more bewildering in that QT has compared the trendsetting HK
director Chang Cheh as the John Ford of Asia; the quote of which can be
found elsewhere in this series.

I wonder just how many butts were put in seats with the words, "Quentin Tarantino Presents" slapped onto a theatrical movie poster. Or how many units of a particular title were sold just because his name was featured
somewhere on the DVD cover. I've seen his name on both the front and
the back of some DVDs! Some movies he had nothing to do with aside from
lending his name as a presenter have often been referred to as a Quentin Tarantinomovie! Check the cover to the right insert about Cung Le in "Quentin Tarantino's new kung fu movie." First off, it's directed by RZA, not QT; the film being the awful THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS (2012).

So long as a certain level of hisfanbase follow along like the bubblewrap faced zombies in PLANET TERROR, Tarantino can do no wrong and will continue to be praised for things that would get other directors labeled as hacks.He will continue to sample
bits and pieces from other sources, take credit for doing them better,
all the while being hailed as an original. While DEATH PROOF proved to
be an exploitation movie without any exploitation, his next flick would
prove to be a war movie without a war.

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About Me

I've been a huge movie buff since childhood catching old horror and monster flicks on Shock Theater and kung fu movies at the drive-in during the late 70's and early 80's. I've had a long time fascination with, and appreciate all genres of fantastic cinema, good and bad. One fans cheese is another fans juicy steak. I like both equally and seldom find a film I truly dislike as I will find something of interest in just about anything. The bulk of the films or tv series' seen here are mostly from my childhood, or films I own in what has become an Amazing Colossal DVD collection.